The Herd
From L to R:
Belita, Lucy, Mary-Rose
This is the beginning of our herd. Belita, Lucy and Mary-Rose will be the original mothers . They are from the Silver family (see No.1 below). Now I’ve looked into it I feel like they should make lots of new ones….there are not a huge amount of them left.
Their pedigree names are:
Lower Eaton Ruby 14th
Lower Eaton Ruby 15th
Lower Eaton Amethyst 5th
A bit like queens I think
I chose the Traditional Hereford because it is a relatively rare breed – and docile.
A bit of history…
THE BREED
The Traditional Hereford was carefully nurtured and developed by a group of skilled breeders in Herefordshire 250 years ago and are so firmly fixed that their transmission from one generation to another can always be relied upon. It was this selection process in Herefordshire and the surrounding Counties, which created the ideal grazing animal.
More information at: www.traditionalherefords.org
TRADITIONAL HEREFORDS CENSUS 2008
Year 1994 2003 2005 2008
Cows 223 454 511 742
Stock bulls 17 24 43 54
Cow families 37 26 24 22
Herds 10 49 61 63
OVERALL POPULATION
Cattle numbers continue to increase with a conservative estimate of 742 pedigree traditional cows in pedigree herds.
This is an increase of 45% since the 2005 census.
The number of stock bulls has also increased to 54.
PEDIGREE REGISTRATIONS
The number of pedigree female registrations continues to increase, however, herd numbers have levelled off, and new recruits are only managing to replace those retiring.
COW FAMILIES
Twenty cow families now have reasonable numbers.
Two have only two members (Linnet and Ivydene)
Two families are extinct (Spark and Springhill Countess)
The Families
- Silver (Amethyst, Cilla, Ruby, Sapphire, Sylvia)
- Julia
- Belladonna (Venus, Spotlight, Model, Laura)
- Amorous
- Curly
- Plum / Potency
- Gaymaid
- Beauty (Gaudy, Buttercup/fly, Free Town “C”)
- Regina
- Dainty
- Dowager
- Silk
- Judy
- Maria
- Pearl
- Lively
- Daisy
- Countess (Llandinabo)
thinkingcowgirl 
I’m speechless.
Don’t you just love all those names? Amorous! Dainty! Sigh.
Wonderful!!
Hopefully there’ll be more along soon (ish). 🙂
Aw…love them ❤
I’ll pass it on 🙂
I love them. Herefords are pretty much my favourites, although we ended up running Dexters on our small-holding. (We named ours after politicians) Dexters were ideal for us because they are a miniature Irish breed and didn’t pug our rather wet soil too much.
Ah yes the tiny Dexters, they are pretty cute.
Love the new spring look. Should we be looking for pregger cows? Sounds exciting and scary!
Is that all that are left?!!! I thought that Hereford’s were a standard breed? See how little we, the people, know? You are certainly doing your bit for queen and country 🙂
You’re right there is a regular Hereford breed but this is the original ancient breed … prefixed by Traditional English. Small, slow growing and horned…at odds with intensive meat production. It is a totally different bloodline. They realised they were in trouble back in the 1960’s and started saving semen. So my girls may be impregnated by a 45 year old bull!
I have just found your lovely site – we have Traditional Herefords too, in Scotland where we are surrounded by continental cattle and farmers who think we are mad (except this spring when ours were eating haylage and theirs were guzzling vast amounts of expensive concentrates!)
We love our cows and calves see our website Kileekie.co.uk if you are interested.
Oh how exciting a fellow TEH lover 🙂 Most breeders seem to be quite old fashioned and haven’t embraced technology! Thanks for the comment I will definitely be along soon to your site. You might be able to give me some tips!
Oh yes, they are so good at eating cheaply! They like to forage around too. The other day a curious thing happened…it had been raining and they became very excited by some straw which I was putting in their shelter…so much so that they just ate it all up! I wasn’t sure if it was very good for them but they obviously wanted the roughage.
Beautiful photos, interesting site, can I please use your photo (with credit & link) of your girls eating hay from the barrow on Twitter following the Bulls (Hereford FC) win last night v Alvechurch and taking over from them at the top of the Midland Premier League?
Chris
@cwfrith
hi chris sorry I’ve not been keeping up with messages so only just seen this!
Hi, Sarah!!! How are you? Hope things are going well. It’s been a while – wanted to check in on you, your husband, the ladies, and your poetry studies xx